The present invention relates generally to the field of document processing, and more particularly to techniques for locating electronic documents corresponding to paper documents.
Due to the widespread use of computers and other data processing systems an increasing amount of information is now being stored in digital or electronic form. For example, electronic information is stored in the form of electronic documents such as files, etc. Examples of electronic documents include documents created using application programs such as word processors, email programs, image editors, etc., scanned images of paper documents, documents stored in various formats such as PDF, Postscript, etc., and other types of documents stored in electronic form.
The vast number of electronic documents coupled with the proliferation of paper document output devices such as copiers, printers, and facsimile machines, has also greatly increased the number of paper documents that are generated using the electronic documents. These paper documents include printouts generated by printers, photocopies generated by copiers, facsimile documents generated by facsimile machines, photos, and the like.
Due to the large number of electronic documents and paper documents, it becomes very difficult to identify an electronic document corresponding to a particular paper document. The problem is particularly acute in office environments. Most office users have had the experience of spending a great amount of time trying to locate an electronic document corresponding to a particular paper document.
As a result, the ability to locate electronic documents corresponding to paper documents is of great importance, especially in an office environment.